Chapter 47
The male snow crab was blissfully happy these days. Born in the seas off Korea, he'd been in a perpetual state of gluttony ever since reaching adulthood, growing to a size unmatched by his parents or even their ancestors. Drawn by his massive bulk, females had mated with him multiple times. Soon, over a million eggs carrying his genes would hatch and spread across the world.
Most snow crabs got caught by humans before reaching such grandeur. Fishing boats packed traps with anchovies, sardines, and chunks of mackerel, sinking them down—the stench of the corpses irresistible to any crustacean. After feasting in exchange for their lives, they'd end up steaming in pots on supermarket shelves. But this male snow crab had evaded all that.
A massive canister loomed before him, reeking of unpleasant metal and faint decay. Without hesitation, he crawled inside. When he first discovered it, it was stuffed with meat and teeming with rivals. Once the last scrap vanished, the competitors scattered. But he knew of a secret chamber at the canister's deep bottom. Reaching it was tough, but the reward was worth it.
After navigating the twisting narrow passage, he arrived at the promised room. An overpowering scent assaulted his senses the moment he entered, flooding his tiny brain with drug-like ecstasy. Click. Click. His front claws clacked together in anticipation, eyes gleaming. The prey right in front of him was huge and sturdy—enough to sustain him through breeding season.
His mouthparts worked furiously, tearing, ripping, chewing, and savoring the bloated flesh. The faint vibrations dislodged the hat from the prey's head, which slowly sank to the combat information center's floor. It was a black-billed cap embroidered with a golden laurel wreath.
This wasn't some iron trap. It was vastly larger and heavier—thousands of times so. The steel behemoth had a sleek, streamlined hull, with "991" emblazoned on the bow. The final resting place of the Republic of Korea's Aegis destroyer, once called Sejong the Great.
Sated, the snow crab emerged and gazed toward the surface. The "king" hadn't passed by today. Had he gone elsewhere? The king had appeared one day out of nowhere, bestowing great gifts on all nearby sea life. Wherever he showed, a thunderous roar soon followed, dumping unpleasant metal hulks into the depths. But inside those hulks? Chunks of meat with an irresistible aroma.
The king seemed indifferent to them. Sea creatures, initially awed and wary, inevitably began trailing him. Far across the Atlantic in Cape Town, millions of sardines trigger an annual migration hunted by orcas, sharks, seals, Cape gannets, and Bryde's whales in a bizarre alliance. The same was happening in Korea's territorial waters. A strange truce formed around the king, all for the tantalizing flesh in those steel cages.
Mackerel, hairtail, flounder, croakers, saury, flying fish, sea bass, cod, anchovies, groupers, rays, cutlassfish, crabs, shrimp, mantis shrimp, snow crabs, horsehair crabs, flower crabs—and countless other bottom-dwellers. Predators for millennia on human plates, now the tables had turned for the first time.
Food aplenty, land meat rarely tasted, of exquisite flavor. As long as the king kept granting his boons, no need to fight among themselves. The snow crab considered seeking the king but decided to stay—plenty of meat left for him alone.
Something glinted on the surface in his eyes. Reeking of metal and rubber, it plunged with a splash. Startled, he burrowed into the sand.
The massive screen in the Central Control Room streamed footage from the underwater drone. The once-mighty destroyer lay sunken below, its side cratered by some immense force—easily eight meters wide. Ripples of thousands of dents spread across the hull. Seawater must have flooded through those countless cracks in seconds.
"Not... that lobster-lookin' bastard, right?"
A nuclear punch like that would've bisected it clean, not just dented it.
After wrapping up the prisoner rescue and intake, Artemis and I had prioritized sea exploration. That deafening BOOM!!! booming through the speakers. A single blow cleaving a massive ferry in two. What the hell was that colossal monster?
It could've starred in a Pacific Rim flick without batting an eye—no, it'd be a fan favorite. Giant robots pulped by punches like a boxer on a speedbag... who'd boo that spectacle?
The ocean wasn't safe anymore. Who knew what lurked beneath that serene surface? Half-joking, I pictured mermaid-like things crawling up on a full moon to knock on the Shelter's back door. For the city's safety, we had to scout every Infected down there.
And the results?
"It's clean?"
More than clean. Utterly pristine.
My assessment got corrected. We'd dispatched scouting drones hundreds of kilometers out, and the sea was flawless—no anomalies. Maybe because fishing had ceased entirely? Beyond clean, it teemed with abundance.
Seaweed forests stretched toward the surface. Small fish darted through them. The drone's high-res cams caught egg clusters clinging everywhere, males spraying milt over them.
It's a sandfish. Right now is their spawning season.
Zoomed in, it looked like silver clusters of grapes growing on sharp pine needles.
Starfish like stars fallen into the sea, sea urchins rolling around like chestnut burrs, coral emitting a kaleidoscope of colors, and jellyfish fluttering and drifting in the distance—it was a literal treasure trove of an ecosystem.
An endless procession of life, harmony, and beauty. Not a single trace of infection, nor the twisted, rotting appearance of aberrations could be seen anywhere.
If there was anything ruining this landscape, it was only the sunken ships.
Fishing boats, passenger ferries, and warships alike—countless vessels lay sunken and destroyed.
Gaping holes, crushed flat as if a giant had stomped on a tin can, or snapped clean in two; the causes were varied.
But apart from those hunks of scrap metal, it was a picture of perfect nature.
"What's going on? Why is the ocean so pristine?"
As far as I knew, the infection didn't discriminate between species of living things.
Beep—. At that moment, a large red dot was caught on the sonar at the bottom of the screen.
Massive object detected in the upper northeast.
"Is it that bastard?"
I was referring to the mantis shrimp-like monster that had smashed the ferry.
We'll know once we check.
"It's not a whale or a ship, right?"
It's moving underwater at 35 knots. It's neither.
I steered the underwater drone toward the target location.
The massive object was pacing back and forth as if on patrol, and it happened to be coming right toward our drone, so we encountered it quickly.
"It's a different one?"
The image captured on the drone's camera was a giant stingray. More accurately, it was something resembling a stingray.
As far as I knew, there were no 200-meter-long stingrays. Nor did they have four blood-red eyes burning with hatred.
The creature was swimming around with its massive mouth wide open, just like a baleen whale feeding.
Only, what was attached to it wasn't baleen, but a bundle of long tentacles reminiscent of a sea anemone. Each and every one of them writhed hideously, as if possessing a will of its own.
Beep—. Another movement was caught on the sonar.
"Was there another one?"
No. The one caught this time is an actual whale.
Just as Artemis said, a large whale appeared from the other side.
It's a fin whale.
The fin whale moved straight toward the massive monster.
"It's going to get killed at this rate."
I wanted to stop the dangerous approach, but there was no way. Just as I was bracing myself to see the whale torn apart and spewing blood...
Contrary to my expectations, that didn't happen. In fact, something even more surprising occurred.
Kwoooong—. The stingray-like monster simply glided past the fin whale, and the fin whale let out a strange, melodic cry toward the monster and wagged its tail.
If it wasn't just my imagination, it felt like a friendly greeting.
At that moment, the stingray monster turned to face us. The glow of its four eyes, blazing in the dark sea, deepened even further.
Its massive mouth, big enough to swallow a shark whole, pursed tightly and jutted forward.
Simultaneously, the tentacles sprouting around its mouth convulsed at incredible speed, creating countless ripples. It looked as if hundreds of millions of water striders were dancing on the water's surface all at once.
From the center of those ripples, a powerful sonic arrow was fired. The projectile flew at us, continuously generating circular shockwaves the size of apartment buildings at intervals of dozens of meters.
Artemis immediately executed evasive maneuvers, but it was no use. The speed of the sonic arrow was incomparably faster than a torpedo, and its area of effect was massive.
I can't dodge this.
Beeeeeeeeep—. The video feed cut to black as a blaring warning alarm rang out.
The screen, which had been showing the beautiful underwater environment just moments ago, now only displayed a 'NO SIGNAL' message. The drone had been destroyed by the bastard.
Click. The loud warning alarm stopped when Artemis severed the connection.
"Was the destroyer taken out by that thing?"
Probably.
The underwater exploration we started to prepare for danger.
Fortunately, there seemed to be no immediate threat directed at the city, but several new questions had arisen in its place.
"Let's summarize for a second. The things we've confirmed so far."
Tap, tap, tap. I sank deep into my chair and tapped the armrest with my index finger.
"The marine ecosystem is being maintained no differently than before the infection outbreak. Check."
If anything, it's become more abundant. Since human fishing activities have completely halted.
Artemis recorded my first point on the central control room screen.
"Only powerful, mega-sized infected exist in the ocean. Check."
Unlike the shelter, where dogs, rats, and even plants were infected on a wide scale, a universal infection phenomenon did not occur in the ocean.
The second point was recorded.
"The bastards don't attack marine life, or at least not whales. Check."
The third point was also recorded.
However, they do attack drones and ships. Check.
That made four points.
It was baffling.
"What exactly are these bastards doing?"
At least the zombie viruses in movies are intuitive, but what the hell is this thing?
I manipulated the touch panel, replaying the last footage captured by the drone on a loop.
Those burning eyes glaring in this direction.
The undeniable hatred contained within them.
The whale passing peacefully in front of it.
No matter how much I thought about it, the mystery only seemed to deepen.